


Into the Void

by July



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 06:47:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4425452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/July/pseuds/July
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emily turns to the Void for comfort, and for a long time, the Outsider has been offering it to her.</p>
<p>This is a quick warmup drabble for a larger Dishonored piece I'm working on, but I like it enough to post. Light adult Emily/The Outsider, as we get ready for the second game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Void

Her hands reached out to grasp at anything, but there was nothing there as she fell down, down, down. There was a loud rush in her ears, the world around her blurred past her. Eyes closed, her lips parted as she sucked breath in until the sensation of falling faded away and she was simply suspended in an endless void. Slowly her lids peeled back and she looked around, cliffs floating in midair each holding various crumbling architecture. Her back straightened, toes touching solid ground feeling the cool stone on bare feet as she now stood on one of the islands. With a sigh, she let her head fall back, taking in the view of the pale blue light cast over the dreamscape before her. Islands, massive whales, and ships surrounded her, and yet she felt no reason to be alarmed. She had had dreams like this before.

Before her a young man materialized, the same man she had seen in her dreams since she was a child. A child, once the daughter of an Empress until it was all ripped away from her. When she saw him, it was always in the middle of a nightmare, and his pale hands would clear the horrific visions like drawing curtains and she would run to him. He was clearly her saviour from revisiting the day of her mother’s murder, and when she was young, the black-eyed man would take her into his arms without protest. His coat was rough leather as far as she could tell, but it felt foreign, and never stained from her tears. She always remembered he smelt of the sea, both its soothing breezes and its briny deeps.

Even as she had grown into adulthood, he still took her into his arms when she wanted him to. Tiny stones pricked the bottoms of her feet as she stepped forward, losing herself in his blackened gaze as she drew closer. His arms received her as she pressed her face into the shoulder of his coat, trembling fingers touching the strands of hair at the back of his neck. She inhaled sharply when the mark on her hand began to burn hot from his contact, and then she smelled the sea again.

The Outsider’s hands were held chastely at her back even as she gripped him tightly. It was only when she drew away did she feel his slight fingertips trail down her spine. Quickly his wrists crossed behind him and he regarded her with his usual curiosity.

“Thank you,” she breathed, as she always did, voice choked in her throat.

“There is no need,” he said flatly, as he always did. “I enjoy your company, Emily.”

He was the only one to call her Emily in her days as Empress. The title only made her feel detached.

The mark on her hand had cooled off, going black again like the tattoos of sailors and thugs. She had received it over a decade now, when she had first taken her place on the throne, and had only on occasion used it. The Outsider had blessed her with magic, but the only times she cast a spell was to stop the world around her for a moment if only to breathe. Sometimes she just had to scream.

In the Void, she would spend what sometimes felt as long as days with the Outsider, the real time being irrelevant. She could always stay as long as she wanted as they would walk the vast stretches of islands and artifacts from her world. The longer she spent time with him, the more familiar he seemed to become. More human. She would reach out to touch his hand, a feeling neither cold nor warmth on his skin. It seemed to surprise him when she touched him, but he never rejected her.

She spent more and more time in the Void as she grew older, the entire day in Dunwall seeming to go by slower as she anticipated going to bed to slip into a dream and see her friend. As the years went by, she found herself needing The Outsider’s company more and more as the city descended into further chaos, more rats, more plague victims, more nobles giving her trouble. Dunwall was already a half-rotten corpse and there was little chance in resurrecting it. The Outsider told her that if she found a way, she could unlock the secrets to getting into his realm whenever she wanted, but she hadn’t found it yet. Instead, in her most desperate times of need, occasionally he would appear before her when she was alone. Silent. Holding her hand as the other clenched in a fist. Her shoulders shaking with sobs, he would hold her until she calmed. Kissing her cheek to taste the salt of her tears. Laying down next to her as his presence finally lulled her to sleep, holding her. And when she was ready to give it up under the strain, rarely, only rarely, would he whisk her into the Void then and there.

It was only a matter of time until she disappeared from Dunwall to search for the secrets the Outsider spoke of. Corvo had already cleared the city of any trace of the god, but the other Isles might hold more runes, more texts. She wanted to leave everything behind her, search the world with her face hidden, and then slip away for real, for she knew once she could enter the Void on her own terms, she would never leave. Where time didn’t exist, she didn’t know how long she would live, but it was away from all the pain and all the trauma the real world caused her. And he would be there, offering comfort when she needed it until she eventually forgot what she needed it for in the first place.


End file.
